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What do I believe in? Belief means faith, and there's only one damned thing in the world I have any faith in. That's the idea of American democracy, because it seems to me so obvious that that's the only sensible way to run human affairs.

Rex Stout

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Rex Stout
Age: 88 †
Born: 1886
Born: December 1
Died: 1975
Died: October 27
Novelist
Radio Personality
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Noblesville
Indiana
Believe
Means
Sensible
Way
Running
Affair
World
Seems
Obvious
Ideas
Democracy
Human
Belief
Humans
American
Mean
Faith
Damned
Thing
Idea
Affairs

More quotes by Rex Stout

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To say that a man is a reasoning animal is a very different thing than to say that most of man's decisions are based on his rational process. That I don't believe at all.
Rex Stout
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Only fools and philosophers waste time on the unknowable.
Rex Stout
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God made you and me, in certain respects, quite unequal, and it would be futile to try any interference with His arrangements.
Rex Stout
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The more you put in your brain, the more it will hold - if you have one.
Rex Stout
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Everything in a story should be credible.
Rex Stout
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Bosh. I find a rival - but no, I won't flatter myself that Tecumseh Fox would consider himself a rival of Dol Bonner - I find an eminent detective in your apartment, and that alone is enough, without adding that he is concealed in your bedroom while I am discussing my business with you.
Rex Stout
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Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.
Rex Stout
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Measure your minds height by the shadow it casts.
Rex Stout
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The trouble with an alarm clock is that what seems sensible when you set it seems absurd when it goes off
Rex Stout
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I will ride my luck on occasion, but I like to pick the occasion.
Rex Stout
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MY rule is never to be rude to anyone unless you mean it.
Rex Stout
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As a professional writer of detective stories, I string along with the ballplayers. I love a ball game.
Rex Stout
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There are only two kinds of books which you can write and be pretty sure you're going to make a living — cook books and detective stories.
Rex Stout
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I love books, food, music, sleep, people who work, heated arguments, the United States of America, and my wife and children. I dislike politicians, preachers, genteel persons, people who do not work or are on vacation, closed minds, movies, loud noises, and oiliness.
Rex Stout
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Sometimes it's things that take the joy out of life, like a blowout when you're hitting sixty or a button coming off of a shirt when you're in a hurry, but usually it's people.
Rex Stout
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Every book takes me from 35 to 41 days to write. I don't know why that is. I've tried to get it down to 30 or 31, depending on the length of the month, but it won't work. I don't drink while I'm writing because it fuddles my logical processes, but when I finish a book I go down to the kitchen and pour myself a big belt.
Rex Stout
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Opinions, from experts, cost money.
Rex Stout
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A character who is thought-out is not born, he or she is contrived. A born character is round, a thought-out character is flat.
Rex Stout
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I don't approve of open fires. You can't think, or talk or even make love in front of a fireplace. All you can do is stare at it.
Rex Stout
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A man may debar nonsense from his library of reason, but not from the arena of his impulses.
Rex Stout